those sad days

this is a series of emails i sent to mica's mother...

Subject: mica is in the hospital

Sent: Sun 2006/12/24 4:43 PM

mica swallowed a leather strap about four inches long, a toy-mouse tail. x-rays showed that it has now been degraded inside of her, but while it was in her, she didn't intake or expel anything. her blood isn't right. the red blood cells aren't working properly. the content is abnormally high in phosphorus, salt and other things. she's very dehydrated but she's on a catheter for fluids. she has jondus (high bilirubin) and her skin is yellow. it appears that she ingested something toxic, but there are no chemicals around the house that i can see that she may have gotten into. for now, she's resting, being observed and being fed through a tube. i stayed up with her all last night and i came home to sleep between 10am-3pm. i'm on my way back out now. i just had to stop by a pc to let you know what's going on. i'll update you as i can. mica turned four yesterday. .J

Subject: mica, my love

Sent: Sun 2006/12/24 5:36 PM

i was stopped by the phone after i sent the last email. mica is not going to be with us much longer. her liver and kidneys are larger than they should be. i can put her through several tests to determine if it's FIP or cancer, but the rest of her life would not be pleasant. the other possibility is that she may have liver disease. if it's that, then with chemotherapy and drugs, she may live a few more months. she's going to be on an iv overnight and tomorrow morning we're going to reevaluate and make decisions. .J

Subject: mica has returned to the sky

Sent: Mon 2006/12/25 9:45 AM

Subject: our daughter

Sent: Mon 2006/12/25 9:38 PM

on my way to the hospital this morning, just a few miles away, the doctor called and said that over night, mica had gotten worse, she wasn't breathing without a tube, and she had just experienced some seizures. they immediately walked me back into the place where she was and she wasn't doing well when i saw her. she reacted to me. she knew my touch. she tried to get the tubes out of her, but calmed down when i rubbed her nose. the doctor said that they were 99% certain that it was fip, but regardless of what it was, mica was in pain and would go soon on her own, she offered the possibility of helping her not suffer any longer and i said please make it stop. she explained what i was signing and i wrote my name and the date and she gave mica a sedative. she relaxed a little more. we removed the tube from her throat and i held it close to her open mouth so she could still breath. i was talking to mica from the time i walked in and i kept talking to her and petting her until she went to sleep after the second injection. i was walked out to the front desk and i stood there while they talked to me, but i was really disoriented and i didn't understand what they were saying. i walked to the car and continued to cry for however long, then i sobbed the way home, and zero met me at the door meowing. all of this happened so fast. just before i took her to the hospital, she was laying by the fire with zero and me on that special little blanket of mine and zero cleaned her head and ears. ...it was the most beautiful thing i've ever seen them do. ...if it was fip, zero has it as well. having found mica in a gutter, she must have gotten away from someone to their great disappointment because the doctor said that mica is a pure breed and she likely got it in the cattery where she was bread. one in twenty kittens who have the virus will ever develop the disease. if they do, they usually do it before they're five and zero's nine now. at some point they asked me what i wanted done with mica's body and i decided to have her cremated. ...a few months now, i've been recording random digital video of the kittens. when i'm okay enough to attempt it, i'm going to make a dvd of all of her pics, video and audio clips of her and i'll be sure to give you one. ..i drove around a lot today. i didn't know what to do. the time i have been home, zero is staying close and meowing loudly and acting different in other ways. i've been wearing the scarf she used as a blanket. i had taken it to the hospital this morning. zero smelled it and kind of freaked out a little. he made a strange face and ran away. when the ice thing in the freezer fills with water, it makes an identical sound to mica drinking water. it freaked me out one day when she was on my lap and then i heard her in the kitchen. so, i keep hearing a sound that reminds me of her. and when my mind is in transition and i hear it, my mind reverts to her being there as the fact and then the new facts come crashing in really hard. like, when i woke up this morning, for the first few moments, i was getting up and i was moving to feed mica, as i'm trained to the first thing every morning. these things will be hard to deal with, but i'm trying to turn the sound of the freezer into a good reminder. this all happened too fast. we were supposed to grow up together. go on trips together. see the world. she was supposed to be the one to be there when zero leaves me. life is this way. and her life was spent in wonder and love and i'm so thankful for her. please file these dates under family: 2002.12.23-2006.12.25 along with a little note about our little blue-eyed punkinhead.